This doesn’t sound like diplomat-speak:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country, in the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.

Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump and declared him “persona non grata.”

Rubio linked to a Breitbart story about a talk Rasool gave during a South African think tank’s webinar.

Rasool, speaking by videoconference, talked about Trump ally Elon Musk’s outreach to far-right figures in Europe as a “dog whistle” in a global movement trying to rally people who see themselves as part of an “embattled white community.” …

It is highly unusual for the U.S. to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status.

You may have noticed – as I did – that “Ebrahim Rasool” sounds like a Muslim name. Here’s some of Rasool’s background:

Ebrahim Rasool was born 15 July 1962 in District Six, Cape Town to a Muslim family of mixed English-Javanese-Dutch-Indian heritage. Since he was classified as Coloured by the apartheid system, when he was nine years old, he and his family were forcefully evicted from the area due to the government declaring the area a “Whites – only” residential suburb.

Rasool has had a long career in politics in South Africa, starting during the apartheid era. Here’s more of his history:

On 14 July 2008, Rasool was recalled from the position of premier by the National Executive Committee of the ANC, as the ANC leadership had disapproved of him giving preference to the large Muslim and Cape Coloured populations in the Western Cape.

At one time, race determined just about everything in South Africa. To a large extent, I think it still does.

It should come as no surprise whatsoever that Rasool also is Hamas-friendly:

In a Semafor report earlier this week, a South African cited Rasool’s strident criticism of Israel — with the news site describing him as one of the South African government’s “most ardent pro-Palestine voices” — as the reason for his struggle to secure meetings with US officials.

He has also appeared to express support for Hamas, posting a photo to Facebook in September 2023 of a scarf that he said was signed by the terror group’s then leader Ismail Haniyeh and which he received during an “ITI programme with Hamas to share strategic wisdom in the face of Arab ‘normalisation,’ further Israeli occupation , & US approval.”

NOTE: South Africa has long had a fairly large population of ethnic Indians, and I recall that Gandhi spent many years there – 21, to be exact. It was where he developed many of his political beliefs, and where he experienced the most prejudice compared to other places he had lived, such as London.